Written by Madeline Markham Koonce
Shelley Grissom vividly remembers the first time she laid eyes on this house on La Prade Place. She was a high school senior at the time, and one day when she was babysitting, she noticed that the brick Tudor cottage across the street was for sale.
“I want to live in that house someday,” she remembers thinking. One day a few years later, she got a call from the family she was babysitting, telling them that the owner of the cottage might be thinking of selling, so after putting a business card in their mailbox and waiting six months, she actually sold the cottage. Little did she know she would end up selling. , let’s go home with her family.
Now, this 1928 Tudor-style home is one of three on the Hollywood Historic Homes Tour on April 28th.
When Sherry and her husband, Seth, purchased the home in 2016, they were the third owners of the home, which has been around for nearly 90 years, and the dining room, which the original owners had pressed into service. All the features of the time, such as the buttons, have been inherited. Servants came from the carriage house behind.
The couple’s original plan was to make only minor renovations to their three-bedroom, two-bathroom home, but one night they saw water pouring down the walls and decided to gut the interior. , breathing new life into a classic framework. .
Sherry and Seth did most of the work themselves during the two-year renovation process, working with home designer Brian Jernigan to maintain the historic footprint while updating plumbing, wiring, windows, and walls. . During the renovation, the original lath board and plaster walls came off, and the original horsehair insulation around the windows began to peel. The Grissoms also bricked up some windows because they were letting too much light into their living spaces and bedrooms.
The only major changes they made during the renovation were removing the wall that had formed the butler’s pantry and expanding the small kitchen into a spacious kitchen that opens onto the living room, with a small powder room off of it. did.
Originally, the rooms had ceilings of 7 feet, 8 feet, and 9 feet, so the Grissoms decided to standardize the ceilings at 9 feet, creating an open vaulted ceiling in the living room that echoed the house’s original roofline. exposed.
During the renovation, an aging fireplace was also rebuilt and installed to the height of the new vaulted ceiling in the living room.
The carriage house was in such disrepair that they decided their only option was to rebuild it. The Grissoms decided to stay as true to the original as possible, saving all the brick they had torn down and widening it by a few feet to accommodate a modern-sized car in his first-floor garage. , reconstructed the carriage to its original plan. Today, the only thing left is the original claw-foot bathtub, and the second floor features additional living space with a small kitchen and bathroom, which Seth used as a “man cave” for watching sports. I’m using.
The Grissoms also saved wood from the original carriage house and used it to build the breakfast table that is now in the main house.
Just as it was in 1926, the main entrance hall has limestone floors and the sound echoes on the floor in front of the fireplace. The original light fixtures and doorknobs were present, except that the original front door and knob remained in place, but were replaced with new ones designed to look as if they were from the same era. I did.
Although they didn’t have the space for the piano that had been in their home for years before they bought it, the Grissoms found a new home for it in a nearby Hollywood home owned by a work colleague.
Today, the home combines Seth’s traditional design preferences with Shelly’s modern touches. All of the hardwood in this home has the original dark walnut color under the original arched doorway, all the walls are classic white, and the curtains and furniture are in neutral colors.
“We wanted it to have a homely feel, but be bright and sunny,” Shelley said.
The white walls serve as a gallery where Shelley displays pops of color from bright modern abstract art that she collects primarily from artists in the Southeast. Two of her most treasured works are a pop art portrait of Audrey Hepburn by Montgomery native Ashley Longshore, who has been called the “feminist Andy Warhol,” and a contemporary artist from Atlanta named Sally King, her Benedict. This is an abstract face by
“Art is a really big influence on me. I love it,” Shelley said. “I go to art galleries wherever I travel.”
On the walls of her dining room (left) and breakfast room are paintings by Laura Rice and Elizabeth Hayes of Alabama, Windy O’Connor of North Carolina, Craig Green of Nashville, and Elaine Burge of Georgia. It is displayed alongside a painting by Alison James. A painting drawn by Shelley himself is displayed at the entrance of the house.
tidying up the garden
As the interior changed, the landscape around the house also changed dramatically. When the Grissoms bought the house, the property had a fair number of trees for its size, and much of the ground was covered with mondo grass. It now has a more well-kept feel, and the garden allows for better visibility of the house from the street.
The Grissoms also found azaleas dotted around the property that were gifts from neighbors to the original owners, Peggy and Arthur Smith. Plant experts at the Birmingham Botanic Gardens that the Grissoms consulted weren’t sure if the plants would survive the move, but the plants are now clustered together in the same spot in front of the house, and are no different from the house. A testament to the strong history of the Grissom family. Four people who cherish the present.
Hollywood Historic Homes Tour Returns April 28th
For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, you can tour three homes as part of the Historic Hollywood Homes Tour.
The tour, which includes one Spanish and two English Tudors, will take place on April 28th from 1pm to 4pm. Tickets are $40 each and can be purchased online at bit.ly/hollywoodhometour2024 or at the door on the day of the tour.
This event is a fundraiser held by the Hollywood Garden Club to support neighborhood beautification and Shades Cahaba Elementary School.
In addition to the AV Smith House on La Prado Place, you can also tour two other houses. The Adams House is her 1926 two-story Tudor Revival building on English Circle, formerly owned by Mary Adams of the popular Mary Adams Antiques in Homewood. and the 1925 Spanish Colonial Revival Nelson House, the personal residence of Hollywood developer Clyde Nelson.
Hollywood’s roots date back to 1924, when the Hollywood Land Company was formed and Nelson hired Harvard-trained landscape architect Ruby J. Pierce to design the 750-lot district. Architect George P. Turner designed most of the original homes, which he sold for $35,000 and ranged from $15,000. In addition to the original Spanish architecture, Nelson later allowed the site owners to build his Tudor Revival style homes, but the strict design standards that maintained his vision for the community remained in place.
Hollywood was incorporated in 1926 and merged with the City of Homewood in 1929. In the area’s early years, the Hollywood Country Club offered a large pool and fine dining.
In 2002, the Hollywood Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places and is still known for its historic Spanish and Tudor-style homes.
